GQ Celebrates the Male Chick Flick: A Great Unsung Film Genre; From Shane, Old Yeller, and Diner to Stand by Me, Brian's Song, and The Shawshank Redemption, a Tribute to the Tearjerkers Real Guys Love.

NEW YORK -- While the "chick flick" is a thoroughly discussed, reviewed, and well-established phenomenon, its male counterpart remains largely unheralded. For October, the editors of GQ explore the cinematic territory of male bonding in "In Praise of the Male Chick Flick," a special tribute to army epics, tales of complicated families and brotherly devotion, prison-break adventures, life-affirming road trips, and sports yarns.

Also included is the input of such chick flick filmmakers as Nora Ephron and the Weitz brothers, an exploration of the sports subgenre, and a survey of the top 25 movies that shamefully strum the heartstrings of manly men everywhere. Highlights include:

#24, Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939): At an English all-boys prep school in the 1870s, Mr. Chipping (Robert Donat) becomes a mentor to a slew of students; over the course of sixty years, he helps guide them into adulthood while challenging the school's stringent rules.

#22, Stand By Me (1986): The preteen Easy Rider. Four Norman Rockwell-issue country boys run away from home to hunt for a dead body. Along the way, they encounter junkyard dogs, leeches, and an oncoming train.

#21, Boyz N the Hood (1991): In John Singleton's meditation on black-on-black violence, ghetto superdad "Furious" Styles (Laurence Fishburne) struggles to protect his son Tre (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and some other kids from the perils of the streets.

#19, Apollo 13 (1995): It's April 1970, and except for the astronauts, their families, and Walter Cronkite, nobody cares about the space program anymore...until disaster strikes.

#18, About a Boy (2002): Superficial cad Will (Hugh Grant) and awkward boy change each other for the better and manage to get hot, British girlie action as a result. Pseudo-son/fake-father buddy movie plays perfectly against the guitar soundtrack by Badly Drawn Boy.

#16, Shane (1953): Shane (Alan Ladd), a perfectly drifter in a fringed shirt moseys in off the range just in time to save a lawless frontier town from Rufus Ryker and his band of bad guys.

#14, Diner (1982): In 1959 Baltimore, six twentysomethings in duffel coats talk sex, marriage, sports, and Sandra Dee. The soundtrack--featuring Jerry Lee Lewis, Bobby Darin, and Elvis--is just gravy.

#12, Midnight Cowboy (1968): Lonesome cowboy Joe Buck (Jon Voight) heads east in search of New York society dames who'll pay to play. Instead, he hooks up with sleazy gimp Ratso Rizzo (Dustin Hoffman), a dubious introduction to big-city life.

#11, Rudy (1993): Rudy Ruettiger (Sean Astin) runs like a rhino and weighs a buck twenty soaking wet, but that doesn't stop this underdog from trying to live out his life's dream of playing football for the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame.

#10, Old Yeller (1953): Nothing says "MCF" like a boy and his dog. Consider this classic weepie about a boy left in charge of the family ranch while Pa heads out on a cattle drive. Makes E.T. look like an episode of Oz.

#9, Jerry Maguire (1996): Fast-talking sports agent (Tom Cruise) discovers he has a conscience and promptly loses high-powered job and matching fiancee. But he finds his smile with the help of Cuba Gooding Jr., Renee Zellweger, and a precious tot.

#8, Top Gun (1986): Of course he's got a problem with authority--what part of Maverick do you people not understand? The key moment is either Tom Cruise drifting in an ocean stained with green dye, cradling his friend's lifeless body, or the beach-volleyball montage. We can't decide.

#7, Swingers (1996): Crushed by his failed relationship, Mike cruises around L.A. with his martini-drinking pal Trent (Vince Vaughn) in search of high-profile parties, underground bars, and "beautiful babies." Much swing dancing ensues.

#6, Ordinary People (1980): Waspy Lake Forest family reaches record levels of uptightness after losing a son. Just before their heads explode, a gruff, hirsute supershrink steps in to help surviving son Conrad (Timothy Hutton) break the grip of guilt and shame. All presented to the tear-summoning strains of Pachelbel's Canon.

#5, Brian's Song (1971): The Citizen Kane of the genre. Through pranks, tears, and plenty of sweaty, slow-motion sprinting, Chicago Bears teammates Gale Sayers and Brian Piccolo sack racism--then learn that even true friendship can't stop the Big C. While short on gridiron action, this seminal Movie of the Week was still ostensibly "about football," which meant '70s guys could bawl their eyes out during Piccolo's wrenching death scene.

#4, Good Will Hunting (1997): Math prodigy (Matt Damon) from rough-and-humble Southie cleans toilets at MIT, works through demons with a touchy-feely shrink (Robin Williams), romances out-of-his-league Brit, and gets wicked drunk with the brothers Affleck.

#3, Hoosiers (1986): Can Coach Dale (Gene Hackman)--an ex-navy officer with a volatile courtside manner and heaps of Bobby Knight-style baggage--and his squad of jarhead farm boys win the regionals? At the risk of spoiling it for those of you who've never seen a movie before: Yes.

#2, The Shawshank Redemption (1994): Imprisoned for a crime he didn't commit, floppy-haired banker Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) finds comfort from a sensitive band of cons. Hard time never looked so cuddly.

#1, Field of Dreams (1989): Mysterious voices compel ex-hippie farmer Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) to plow under his corn and construct a baseball diamond. Before you know it, he's shagging flies with Shoeless Joe Jackson and the rest of the scandal-plagued 1919 Chicago White Sox, helping a grouchy ex-radical learn to chuckle, and--eventually--patching things up with his dead dad.

GQ editors are available for interviews. "In Praise of the Male Chick Flick" appears in the October 2005 issue of GQ - the leading men's general-interest magazine and part of Conde Nast Publications, Inc.